Lady of the Flies
by sylviep
Summary: What if the plane that crashed had been full of girls instead of boys? This was actually an English assignment our English teacher gave out.


The fair-haired girl neatly jumped down from the heavy slab of rock. Glancing over her shoulder fearfully, she stumbled through the treacherous maze of mossy trunks and hanging vines, trying in vain to ignore the thirsty bugs that swam about her face and the thorny undergrowth that bit at her legs.

"Wait! Wait for me, please!" The girl froze and then swung around, the sound of feet crashing against the forest's undergrowth unbearably loud to her frightened senses. "Please, don't go!" a high-pitched, shrill and childish voice. Out of the arms of the branches, a chubby girl burst through. She stopped, looking up to grin, and then, with a brow knit in concentration, carefully picked her way through to the fair-haired girl. Pushing up a pair of glasses that slipped down her sweaty nose, she called out, "Goodness! Where are we?"

The blonde girl shrugged her shoulders shyly. "I think," she began hesitantly. "We are on an island. Well, there is a sea out there, I think." One could see the vivacious sparkle of the playful ocean waves from the clearings in the trees.

The chubby girl nodded thoughtfully as she strained to see into the distance. "Let's get out of here," she suggested with a weak smile. "There're too many bugs here!" As they neared the end of the line of trees, the pudgy girl spoke again, trying to be conversational. "So, have you seen any adults, or well, anybody else so far?" Her companion puckered her lips unhappily.

"I haven't seen any of the other children, but further up on the mountain, I passed by the cockpit. It was still burning, and I could see the pilots were inside, dead. It was awful; they-" She stopped, her pouting lips wavering into a downward arc as she tried to fight back tears. The other one put her fat hand on her shoulder, comfortingly. "I'm sorry," the blond girl said, and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. "What's your name?"

Although hesitation marked her face for the slightest instant, she responded, "Margaret."

"Do you have a nickname?" the fair girl asked. "My name is Anne, by the way."

"Well, at school, the other girl's would call me Piggy, but I don't like it," Margaret said a little reluctantly.

"Oh, I wouldn't call you that!" Anne said with a horrified laugh.

Margaret brightened a little, but her fleshy cheeks were still red from shame. "Well, my aunt always called me Meggy. If I had friends, that's what I'd want them to call me," she thought out loud, and then gave her weak smile again.

As they stepped onto the sandy shore, the sunlight blinded them for a little. "It's beautiful!" Anne exclaimed, after the black clouds had faded from her eyes. The ocean lay before them, bright, blue, and calming to the girls who had just been through such a tragedy, "We could go swimming, sometime!" Anne exclaimed brightly. "I love-"

"I can't swim," Meggy interrupted quietly.

"I can," Anne continued, excitedly. "My father taught me when I was very little; when we went down to our summerhouse by the ocean."

Meggy looked embarrassed. "My aunt wouldn't let me because I have asthma." She let out a supremely sorrowful sigh.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Anne offered up attentively. "Does that mean you have an inhaler-thingy then?" Meggy nodded and emptied out the pockets of her fuzzy, carnation-pink cardigan. There was an inhaler, a plethora of brightly colored candy wrappers, a hair scrunchie, and a plastic whistle with an emblem of the Red Cross on the side. "Hey!" Anne exclaimed, grabbing it from the owner's plump fingers.

"Oh, that? A man was giving out little toys in front of the airport, you know…so we could show our support for the war-effort…"

"We can use-"

"Yes?"

"To see if there is anybody else! They will come if we blow the whistle…well, maybe," Anne exclaimed.

Meggy beamed. "You know I was thinking of getting a pencil or a top but, now I'm glad-" she chattered "Shh!" Anne instructed fiercely and raised the whistle to her lips. The shrill, hollow shriek of the plastic whistle pierced though the hot humid air, and they sat down, Anne still blowing fervently, to wait till any of the other children showed up. 


End file.
